Sonic Mania Plus: & Knuckles Overview

Sonic Mania Plus is a $5 expansion to Sonic Mania which adds 2 characters, Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the flying squirrel, and 2 new modes, Encore mode, and Competition mode. Let’s talk about each of these separately & Knuckles

Mighty and Ray

Both Mighty and Ray feel the same for the basic controls just like everyone else, which is very nice. The part where they shine is their mid-air abilities, like Sonic’s drop dash or Tail’s flying, Ray has a glide which is a lot like the cape from Super Mario World, it works well but I feel like it could have been implemented better. Mighty on the other hand is very useful to me. He has a drop attack which deals extra damage to enemies and lets you break through certain floors for extra paths. He makes all the bosses so easy.

Encore Mode

Encore mode is story mode but with some remixed levels and you play with 5 characters. Honestly, the remixes are welcome but not really noticed by me. My first time going through, I thought that I was only going down paths I hadn’t explored yet. Playing with 5 characters is interesting though. You go through the levels and pick up the characters as lives, when you die as one character it cycles through and you play as the next character and so on and so forth. I really like this, you play with 5 lives and you just pick right back up where you left off.

Competition Mode

This is a race mode, where you and a friend or 3 play as different characters and try to be the first to get through an act, It’s fine for what it is, but I didn’t find any value out of this mode, it could be a fun distraction but that’s about it to me.

Is it worth it?

I last played Sonic Mania just under a year ago, revisiting it is a welcome return, with the addition of Mighty and Ray, the remixed story mode, and competition mode, would I suggest upgrading? Yeah. I would, I feel like it gives the game just enough variety to be worth another playthrough of the game. If you don’t own Sonic Mania, it’s worth the $30 to purchase it the first time!